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There's some correlation though, for example richest countries based on ppp/capita are all very small, smaller european countries like Sweden/Norway/Denmark tend to rank first in HDI and equality lists even given the relatively common and shared development history in western Europe, etc.

Japan though can't be called small it's got the population of the UK+France. :P

Unfortunately it's not about any one of those things. Growth of economies is not so simple that you can just label a couple of variables and claim that they're the major factors for predicting growth, in fact its dangerous to do so. Let's look at the example of population; yes, if you run a regression for a large number of countries with PC GDP growth vs population/area (or just population if you like) you're likely to find a negative correlation. If you run a regression with PC GDP growth vs time you'll find a positive correlation. It doesn't mean time or population are the decisive factors contributing to growth. Looking at population, it's entirely possible (and probable), that it's not the population itself, but the growth rate of population that affects the growth of the economy. It doesn't mean that is the decisive factor either.

Why is it dangerous to single out single factors? Let's look at a simple example: If your PC GDP is Y/N (N) is your population, the simplest way to model it would be Y/N = B0 + B1(X1) + B2(X2).. etc. --> a simple linear regression, where b0 your intercept ( your y intercept from y = ax + b), and b1 and b2 are your coefficients for x1 and x2--> your a in y = ax+b. However, is that really likely? What if its Y/N = A(X1)^(a)(X2)^(1-a) ( A regular Cobb Douglas, where 0<a<1 (for simplicity lets just say a = 1/2), A is a time invariant, and possibly intangible factor). What does this tell us? At any one point, if you increase X1, but have a very low X2, ( Call this (1) X11+X21 ), and in another case you have equal X1 and X2 ( Call this (2) X12 + X22). If X11+X21 = X12+X22, the second equation will have a higher GDP PC, even if the total amount of resources distributed between the two is the same. If we couple this with the fact that say, it's not as easy to provide X2 at X1, this doesn't mean that we should just focus on X1, it means, both are essential, rather than any one factor being absolutely decisive. If how easy/hard it was to procure either X1 or X2 changes over time, at different times different factors will be more important.

In truth, there is an entire field of economics dedicated to growth theory, and there is not as yet any conclusion. At the very least, it is a complex combination of the time paths of your different variables (your population, your investment, your infrastructure, your natural resource environment), the initial starting values of your variables, and other non-empirical factors (maybe something like a cultures capability of promoting nationalism or hard work, or the ability of a cultures education values developing entrepreneurs?). The one definitive conclusion that comes from that is that for different countries, there will be different reasons why or why not it has grown, as well as different reasons for a single country at different points of time. You could spend years studying this without making any headway, and plenty of people do. In any case, this discussion is better suited for the Economics thread.

Chinese Military Said to Be Massing Near the Vietnam Border (+Photos):

"Troops, tanks, trucks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers of China’s military
were seen heading to the Vietnamese border on May 16 and 17, according to
photographs taken by by residents near the border.

Chinese netizens have been posting photographs of the large movement of the
People’s Liberation Army, many of them showing Chinese troops in full combat gear
heading to the local train station in Chongzuo, along with military vehicles."

Chinese Military Said to Be Massing Near the Vietnam Border (+Photos):

"Troops, tanks, trucks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers of China’s military
were seen heading to the Vietnamese border on May 16 and 17, according to
photographs taken by by residents near the border.

Chinese netizens have been posting photographs of the large movement of the
People’s Liberation Army, many of them showing Chinese troops in full combat gear
heading to the local train station in Chongzuo, along with military vehicles."

We have got too many people living in Asia and we need population control! [/sarcasm]

__________________

When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

Chinese Military Said to Be Massing Near the Vietnam Border (+Photos):

"Troops, tanks, trucks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers of China’s military
were seen heading to the Vietnamese border on May 16 and 17, according to
photographs taken by by residents near the border.

Chinese netizens have been posting photographs of the large movement of the
People’s Liberation Army, many of them showing Chinese troops in full combat gear
heading to the local train station in Chongzuo, along with military vehicles."

The first one die? The poor one. Have you heard about escaping compulsory military service?

You probably missed the "sarcasm" remark later on in his post.

Ground conflict won't do China any good. As just like Winter War in 1939, or Chinese previous invasion in 1979 (despite i believed Vietnam was fighting on two fronts then). It's easy for an outdated and inexperienced army to be found out when have to wage war against a resistance combat. And despite great investment in technology and military hardware, unlike US or Russian army, Chinese military still hasn't fought in any major war since recent border clash.

Vietnam meanwhile had that whole Vietnam War, Laos invasion and border clash to reflect upon. And probably have heavily entrenched their ground position, prepared for another invasion from the North. Furthermore, both country have recently signed agreement over land border, making any land grab hardly be justified

Apparently Vietnam had a military navy port, the Cam Ranh Bay one, which has leased to Russia till 2018, but had no plan after then.

Wouldn't Chinese decision to bring sea dispute now (which is fairly close to that unused port), basically will be push Vietnam to lease it to US to counter Chinese naval power? Or *conspiracy glass on* did US actually had backhand deal with China to get that going through?

Cam Ranh is in a stalemate now. Russia has the upperhand with their promise of co-building the facilities. That would be a win-win situation: Cam Ranh is the last strategic point available for the Pacific Fleet in South East Asia. Plus, while the appearance of Russian force would be a safeguard for Hanoi, it also would provide assistance for our own (Vietnam has became one of the biggest customer of Russian military industry, with 12 Su-30MK2V coming this year, not to mention an "uncertain" number of Kilo-class submarines.)

However, Vietnam is also trying to get closer to USA. If they could disband the Weapon Ban then yes, it would be a big leverage. But for now, it's just the increasing of frequentcy of Navy visit and some humanitarian projects.

Plus, you don't know the ways of youngsters avoiding military service. Thousand of them, most notably "bad health" and "study aboard". However, there is still the silver lining: It's unnormal to see how close has Vietnamese bond closer together since one year ago: The death of General Giap, the 60th Anniversary of Dien Bien Phu, and China.

Well, I don't think Chinese youth will jump at the chance to join military either.

It's not gonna be an all out war, so even when conflicts broke out, most likely it's will only the trained army which will do the actual fightings. Don't think there is any reason for war to happen through, both countries have being benefited too much from peace. Unless China goes for false flag operation to pump her up her ego, and then things escalate fast to a point of no return.